Jonathan Davenport and Josh Richards were the big winners during SpeedWeeks
Now that the 2016 version of Georgia/Florida SpeedWeeks has concluded, it’s time to take a look back at what transpired over the three week period of wall-to-wall racing with an eye toward looking ahead into the remainder of the season. And the thing that seems to be most clear about what we have just witnessed is that drivers Josh Richards and Jonathan Davenport appear set to post record breaking efforts during this campaign.
Josh Richards
Richards and his Rocket Chassis house car team were the big winners in February as they amassed a total of seven wins during SpeedWeeks. And to make that feat even more impressive was the fact that he scored victories in races sanctioned by both the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series and his regular World of Outlaws Late Models Series despite the fact that the rules for each do not exactly match up after the LOLMDS recently made changes for the suspensions on the cars that compete on that tour. Along the way, the Shinnston, WV driver collected more prize money(over $80,000) than anyone else while leading the most laps(238) during the three week run.
With this busy stretch of the racing season now complete, Richards will now set his sights on winning a fourth WoO Late Models championship.
Davenport was almost as impressive as Richards during SpeedWeeks. The driver of the K&L Rumley Longhorn Chassis collected a total of four checkered flags which ultimately amounted to more than $65,000 in earnings. And the Blairsville, GA driver obviously had plenty of speed at his disposal. He was the fast qualifier in his group an amazing 13 of the 15 times he raced. He was fastest overall in time-trials a total of nine times.
Consider too that Davenport won three features during the month of January in Arizona’s Wild West Shootout, bringing his total number of victories to seven so far in 2016. Keep in mind that by last year at this time he had scored only one triumph during a season in which he went on to win over 20 times.
Jonathan Davenport
And with his SpeedWeeks in the rear view mirror, Davenport will set off on a quest to pick up his second consecutive Lucas Oil title.
Both of these drivers appear to be on pace for record braking campaigns. Perhaps the greatest shame comes from the fact that each will race in a different series and will face each other only a few times from this point forward. But on the other side of that coin, those times they do face off in the crown jewel events ought to be surrounded with great anticipation.
In a two recent polls posted on my Twitter account(@RichardAllenIDR), I asked followers which of these two drivers has the best chance of posting a season as good or better than that of Davenport in 2015. As has been well documented, the No. 6 team had what was most likely the greatest year in Dirt Late Model history last year as he scored 22 victories, including multiple crown jewel triumphs, and an LOLMDS championship.
My Twitter followers seemed to believe that Davenport would again be best suited for such a run of excellence as 73% of those who chose to respond answered in the affirmative for him. At the same time, 40% of those who weighed in believed that Richards could be in line for an historic season in 2016.
Either of those numbers in favor of such a season as Davenport had in 2015 are impressive when it is considered that no one had posted those types of results in all the years leading up to it. But considering that each has already scored seven feature wins and we’re not yet out of the month of February indicates that such is at least plausible.
Among the two, it would seem to this writer as if Richards might have the best chance for a record breaking season in 2016. After the departures of former champions Darrell Lanigan and Tim McCreadie from the World of Outlaws Late Models Series, it appears as if the competition level on that circuit may have dropped off a bit going into the campaign.
That is not to say that winning races on the series will be easy for Richards as drivers such as defending champion Shane Clanton and former title holder Rick Eckert will be among the regulars capable of winning on any given race day. Clanton, after all, won twice during SpeedWeeks after entering only eight events during the three week stretch while Eckert took home the top prize on the second of two nights at Screven Motor Speedway against a highly competitive field of cars. However, the removal of two major stars does at least improve the Rocket driver’s odds in each race.
Davenport, on the other hand, will have to contend with Lanigan and McCreadie on a regular basis along with other established stars such as Scott Bloomquist, Jimmy Owens, Don O’Neal and Steve Francis among those who have indicated they will compete on the Lucas Oil Series full-time in 2016.
Seemingly, it would be difficult to expect so many wins against that many former national touring series champions, but he was able to beat many of those same drivers last year. Among them, Bloomquist looks to be a particularly tough challenge after having won two SpeedWeeks features of his own and coming up just short in the final race at Volusia when he lost to Clanton by a matter of inches.
The fact that there are two major national touring series in Dirt Late Model racing sets up at least the possibility that two drivers could be on their way to record breaking seasons in 2016. As much fun as it was last not only watching Davenport go on his historic run and watching the competition attempt to rise to the occasion each time they faced him, it could be twice as much fun this year as two drivers could be on their way to collecting lots of trophies.
